The optional result_type
parameter accepts a constant and determines how the returned array will be
indexed. Using SQLITE_ASSOC will return only associative
indices (named fields) while SQLITE_NUM will return
only numerical indices (ordinal field numbers). SQLITE_BOTH
will return both associative and numerical indices.
SQLITE_BOTH is the default for this function.

error_msg

The specified variable will be filled if an error occurs. This is
specially important because SQL syntax errors can't be fetched using
the sqlite_last_error() function.

Note: Two alternative syntaxes are
supported for compatibility with other database extensions (such as MySQL).
The preferred form is the first, where the dbhandle
parameter is the first parameter to the function.

Return Values

This function will return a result handle or FALSE on failure.
For queries that return rows, the result handle can then be used with
functions such as sqlite_fetch_array() and
sqlite_seek().

Regardless of the query type, this function will return FALSE if the
query failed.

sqlite_query() returns a buffered, seekable result
handle. This is useful for reasonably small queries where you need to
be able to randomly access the rows. Buffered result handles will
allocate memory to hold the entire result and will not return until it
has been fetched. If you only need sequential access to the data, it is
recommended that you use the much higher performance
sqlite_unbuffered_query() instead.

Changelog

Version

Description

5.1.0

Added the error_msg parameter

Notes

Warning

SQLite will execute multiple queries separated by
semicolons, so you can use it to execute a batch of SQL that you have
loaded from a file or have embedded in a script. However, this works only
when the result of the function is not used - if it is used,
only the first SQL statement would be executed. Function
sqlite_exec() will always execute multiple SQL
statements.

When executing multiple queries, the return value of this function
will be FALSE if there was an error, but undefined otherwise (it might
be TRUE for success or it might return a result handle).

User Contributed Notes 7 notes

I suppose this could be useful for users attempting to use a sqlite database for the first time.<?php$database = new SQLiteDatabase($yourfile, 0666, $error);if (!$database) {$error = (file_exists($yourfile)) ? "Impossible to open, check permissions" : "Impossible to create, check permissions"; die($error);}$query = $database->query("SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table'", SQLITE_ASSOC, $query_error); #Lists all tablesif ($query_error) die("Error: $query_error"); #This means that most probably we catch a syntax errorif (!$query) die("Impossible to execute query.") #As reported above, this means that the db owner is different from the web server's one, but we did not commit any syntax mistake.print $query->numRows();while ($row = $query->fetch()) print($row['name']."\n");?>i suppose that the example above is also useful because it will list all the tables created, giving also comprehension of what appens when managing a sqlite database in OO mode.

/* A neat way to see which tables are inside a valid sqlite file */public function getTables() {$tables=array();$q = $this->query(sprintf("SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' ORDER BY name"));$result = $q->fetchAll(); foreach($result as $tot_table) {$tables[]=$tot_table['name']; } return($tables); }}

In follow up to Csaba Gabor's function (see below) that allows for multi-statement queries to be executed via sqlite_query() this alternative implementation avoids a problem with Csaba's version (which prevents multi-statement constructs like CREATE TRIGGER from being parsed correctly).<?php function sqlite_query_multi ($db, $query) { // // sqlite_query() rewritten to support concatenated SQL statements. // // This method works around the sqlite_query() deficiency by splitting // queries into two parts; the first part comprising all the statements // except the last one (executed via sqlite_exec) and then the last // statement (executed via sqlite_query). // // This allows the result of the last SELECT statement in a multi-statement // query to be accessed regardless of the SQL statements that came before it. // It also allows execution of arbitrary multi-statement programs regardless // whether the result is needed, subject to the following constraint: // // This method requires that the last statement in a multi-statement query // is a valid "stand-alone" SQL statement. If it is not (eg, the "END;" of // a multi-statement construct such as CREATE TRIGGER) append an additional // ";" (ie, a NULL statement). Normally this should not be needed because // almost all the multi-statement constructs I can think of should have a // stand-alone statement following them (ie, to makes use of the construct). //$pattern = '/^(.*;)(.*;)/s'; if ( preg_match($pattern,$query,$match) ) { // multi-statement querysqlite_exec($db,$match[1]);$result = sqlite_query($db,$match[2]); } else { // single-statement query$result = sqlite_query($db,$query); } return (@$result);}?>

sqlite_open will return NULL if the web server cannot write to the sqlite database file.

I saw the following message in my web server error log:

PHP Warning: sqlite_query(): (null) ...

It turns out that the sqlite database file was owned by a user other than the one the web server was running as. In my case, it was a Linux system running Apache (which was running under the context of user apache). The sqlite database file was owned by root. I changed ownership of the file to user apache and now it works! The sqlite_open call now returns a valid result handle.